The Mirabal Sisters: Iconic Figures of Resistance

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by Elize Villalobos

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The Mirabal Sisters. Photo by Alvaro Diaz y Adony Flores. Retrieved from Wikimedia Commons.

As the new year begins, it is a hard necessity that we reflect upon the tumultuous political events that have taken place in the U.S. and across the globe that have shaken people’s collective sense of security. However, for today, rather than analyze circumstances that you already know are dire, it seems prudent to share a story which might revitalize your hopes for this new year, a story in which organized resistance thwarts oppression in the end. The heroines thereof were three sisters: Patria, Minerva, and Maria Teresa Mirabal. It should be noted that their home country, the Dominican Republic, belongs to the Global South, a popular term in transnational and postcolonial studies used to refer to “developing” nation-states that share a history of colonialism or imperialism; the term also describes the “deterritorialized geography of capitalism’s externalities and means to account for subjugated peoples within the borders of wealthier countries,” and “the resistant imaginary of a transnational political subject that results from a shared experience of subjugation under contemporary global capitalism.”[1] Considering these expansive, broad meanings of a Global South, it is only right that these iconic sisters be included as we pay tribute to great southern women of the past and present. The Mirabals were revolutionary activists who stood against the regime of dictator Rafael Trujillo around the mid-1900s and became national martyrs in the process.[2] They had another sister, Dede, who was not involved with their cause due to her personal values and her controlling husband’s opposition.[3] However, even without her aid, her three siblings would manage to change Dominican history and leave an indelible mark on the culture and politics of all of Latin America. 

​Notably, the Mirabal sisters were all born quite close to Trujillo’s rise to power in 1930; Patria, Minerva, and Maria Teresa were born in 1924, 1927, and 1936, respectively.[4] They were raised in an affluent yet conservative, insular area of the Republic, but their upbringing and environment would stifle neither their strength nor their intelligence. Contrary to social norms of the time, the three would be well-educated thanks to their mother who, despite, or because of, her own illiteracy, argued on their behalf for their right to an education. She convinced her strict husband that if Patria were educated on her path to become a nun, her sisters should be afforded the same opportunity.[5] 

All three sisters attended the Colegio Immaculada Concepción, a Catholic School.[6] Afterwards, their individual paths diverged for a time before they would eventually come together again as part of the resistance. Patria left the school after three years, and, rather than becoming a nun, married at the age of 17. Both Minerva and Maria Teresa completed their schooling. Furthermore, both would prioritize higher education and their careers in their lives; Minerva went on to law school and Maria Teresa would study mathematics in college.[7] Around this time, the two would also meet and marry their husbands. The three sisters’ spouses would eventually support and help them in their future resistance against Trujillo. However, before that point, Patria and Minerva would start families of their own; Patria would have a son, Nelson González Mirabal, and Minerva, a daughter, Minou Tavárez Mirabal.[8]
 
Despite regressive social expectations that are unfortunately associated with marriage and motherhood, clearly neither was any barrier to the sisters’ agency and interest in the affairs of their nation. Though Trujillo’s regime was essentially all they had known, it was evident to them that the sociopolitical situation in their beloved homeland was unacceptable. Trujillo’s rule, which was initially supported by the U.S. for strategic and economic reasons, would prove to be a bloody one.[9] Like any fascist, egotistical dictator, Trujillo did not tolerate dissent; he terrorized those who spoke out against him or had them killed. Thousands of Haitians in the Dominican Republic were massacred during his regime.[10] He was corrupt as well as murderous; he exploited his authority to create numerous monopolies, and he thereby become the wealthiest man in the Dominican Republic.[11] Perhaps least surprisingly of all, he also followed the ancient precedent of men in power serially harassing and assaulting women without consequence. He would send so-called “beauty scouts” to bring him young women or girls to sexually abuse.[12]
 
As is inevitably the case when abysmal oppression reigns over a people, the personal and political were intertwined for the Mirabal sisters and many other Dominicans. The sisters’ increasingly strong social consciences were fostered by their passion and intellect and further amplified and strengthened by their unique personal experiences. Minerva, the most vehement of the sisters, was in part inspired by her uncle’s proclivity for politics; in fact, it was because of her thirst for justice and a desire to act on her convictions that she went to law school. She detested Trujillo’s cruelty and was the first sister to strongly voice anti-Trujillo opinions.[13]
 
Additionally, Minerva’s circumstances are the most representative of the gendered aspect of Trujillo’s abuses of power. At age 22, she was targeted by his sexual advances when he “invited” her and the family to a party. According to one version of the story, as Trujillo danced with her, he asked, “What if I send my subjects to conquer you?” She then replied “And what if I conquer your subjects?” and coolly left the scene.[14] A different account alleges that she slapped him hard across the face and hastily made her escape from the party.[15] Regardless, though Minerva would escape Trujillo’s abuse that night, he would make her suffer in other ways.
 
Shortly after the incident, her father was imprisoned and brutalized by the government; he would die soon afterwards. Later on, Minerva and her mother were jailed by the regime, and she was given the ultimatum that they would be set free if she slept with Trujillo. Again, Minerva steadfastly refused, but the pair managed to escape their captors.[16] But Minerva would not be allowed to return to a normal life; she was prohibited from continuing her studies and was placed under three years of house arrest in her parents’ home. Even so, during that time, she was not idle; she wrote poetry describing her unjust circumstances as well as the tragic plight of the nation’s most impoverished citizens.[17]
 
In 1957, Minerva was allowed to returned to law school on the condition that she give a speech in which she exalt Trujillo and his qualities as a leader. This time, she acquiesced; the promise of completing her degree and pursuing her career was worth a moment of shame in her eyes. Minerva would receive her degree summa cum laude, but the temporary reprieve from Trujillo’s interference was only a cruel power play of his, for she was then refused a license to practice law.[18] Although she had always been politically active, Minerva’s resolve would only harden henceforth; as she put it, “It is a source of happiness to do what can be done for our country. It is sad to stay with arms crossed.”[19]
 
Maria Teresa was the next to join the resistance. The youngest of the sisters, she had always admired Minerva and had long shared the latter’s political views and passion, so her choice was a natural one.[20] Patria was the last to become involved. She had always known Trujillo to be a monster, but it was upon witnessing a massacre carried out by the Trujillo regime while on a religious retreat that she became compelled to channel her rage into action.[21] In addition to these personal, affecting events, an additional influence on the sisters was the Cuban Revolution, which had recently ended in 1959 and which would further shape their political sensibilities and inspire their strategies. [22]
 
Now all of one mind and with a fierce determination to see Trujillo and his regime destroyed, in 1960 the three sisters founded the “Movement of the 14th of June,” so named for the day of the massacre which Patria had witnessed.[23] They began to organize their efforts: the sisters enlisted approximately 300 people to help them distribute pamphlets that detailed the regime’s numerous crimes against the Dominican people, and the sisters and their allies began to manually assemble guns and bombs to prepare for an outright, violent uprising.[24] It was during this period of time that they became known as Las Mariposas, or the butterflies, to their allies in the underground resistance. Minou Mirabal would later explain: "My mother loved butterflies and, when she was asked, she would say: 'They are free.' Butterflies were for her a symbol of freedom, and this is why she chose that nickname."[25]
 
The sisters’ activism soon came to a head when they were arrested for plotting to assassinate Trujillo at a cattle fair; a mole had likely infiltrated their ranks and reported back to the authorities.[26] Although they were initially incarcerated, the sisters were quickly released due to the Organization of American States’ official condemnation.[27] Nonetheless, Trujillo had long desired their deaths but had been held back by his advisors for the sake of his public image. However, Trujillo’s restraint had finally snapped and he ordered Las Mariposas’ assassinations.[28] The sisters’ husbands were transported to a remote jail, and it was when they went to visit them that the Mirabals were caught, brutally beaten, and strangled to death by Trujillo’s henchmen. Their bodies were stuffed in their cars and pushed off the road to frame the murders as an accident.[29]
 
Accounts vary on whether or not the sisters knew this was a trap but went anyway or if they were caught off guard.[30][31] Additionally, it is not certain whether or not it was common sense that led the public to recognize that Trujillo was behind the sisters’ murders or whether Patria was responsible for telling a truck driver she managed to reach during the ambush to spread the word of what was about to happen to them.[32][33] However, what matters is that the sisters’ deaths would, exactly opposite to what Trujillo had intended, lead to the end of his regime. Their deaths served as a rallying cry for the resistance and stirred ordinary people all the more against him.[34] He would be assassinated six months later in the midst of mounting opposition by a commander whose girlfriend had joined the resistance. [35]
 
Despite their importance in ridding the nation of Trujillo, it took a long time for the Mirabals to be officially recognized. The succeeding president, Joaquin Balaguer, had been a close ally of Trujillo’s, and the Dominican Republic’s many problems could not be easily wiped away with the death of just one man, however much he may have been the root of its problems. However, 36 years later, the Republic began to stabilize, and Balaguer, who had served six terms as its president, was forced to resign. [36] Henceforth, the sisters were posthumously granted official recognition, though their story was already well known and beloved among the Dominican people. Exhibitions were held in their honor at the National Museum of History and Geography, and Las Mariposas’ surviving sister, Dede, would run “the Mirabal Sisters Museum in their hometown.” [37][38] The sisters were presented as national martyrs in schoolbooks and a special Mirabal stamp was issued throughout the country. The most symbolically triumphant acts were the covering of a Trujillo obelisk with murals of the Mirabal sisters, including Dede, and the renaming of their home province from Ciudad Trujillo to Hermanas Mirabal.[39][40] Lastly, and most significantly of all on a global scale, the U.N. commemorates “[t]he anniversary of their death …  each year as the International Day Against Violence Against Women.”[41] Although they did not live to see it, the sisters’ legacy was profound enough to create an influence which still perpetuates the spirit of their activism even today.
 
The Mirabal sisters’ story is most striking in both its universality and extraordinariness. Time and again, everywhere on earth, there have been horrific rulers and systems of oppression, yet there have always been remarkable people to stand against them and fight for a better future, however doomed to fail they may have seemed. Las Mariposas, their initial circumstances, and their eventual legacy are proof that no matter how desperate the situation or high the cost of mending it may be, the fruit that is ultimately born of resistance is worth it all. While the validation of their cause after their deaths was a clear victory against fascism, it was inherently one for women as well, considering Trujillo’s sexually violent and coercive nature and Minerva’s direct experience thereof. However, like most victories, particularly ones for women and minorities, it was made possible only through teamwork, immense effort and bravery, and sacrifice. Little more can be said; for the new year, perhaps we should all endeavor to do more as well, if we are able. Surely, that would be the greatest and most beneficial tribute to Las Mariposas and women of their character.

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Elize Villalobos is a freshman at the University of North Georgia. Although her major is still technically undeclared, it is increasingly likely that she will major in English. She has always loved reading and writing, and she sees both as powerful means to understanding the world and further developing empathy with other people. After she graduates, she would like to pursue a career that allows her to make as positive an impact on the world and people’s lives as she, a somewhat negative person, is able. Her hobbies include listening to music, reading, watching movies, sitting motionless while lost in thought, debating philosophy and morality with herself, and generally trying to get her life in order. Unaccustomed to taking selfies and unable to tame her hair, write succinctly, or go without a moment of self-deprecation, Elize would like to apologize for the mediocre quality of her profile picture as well as this mini biography’s length.

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[1] Mahler, Anne Garland. “What/Where is the Global South?” Mahler, Anne Garland. 2017. “Global South.” Oxford Bibliographies in Literary and Critical Theory, ed. Eugene O’Brien. 9 January 2018.
[2] Radeska, Tijiana. “The Mirabal Sisters: The three ‘butterflies’ who were killed because of their activities against the dictatorship of Rafael Trujillo.” The Vintage News, 4 April 2017.
[3] Ibid.
[4] “Mirabal Sisters.” Encyclopedia.com.
[5] Ibid.
[6] Radeska.
[7] Ibid.
[8] "Mirabal Sisters."
[9] Ibid.
[10] Snook, Laura J. “How Three Butterflies Defeated a Brutal Dictator.” Telesur.com, 11 November 2017.
[11] "Mirabal Sisters."
[12] “The Mirabal Sisters: The Sisters Who Toppled a Dictatorship.” Rejected Princesses.com
[13] Radeska.
[14] Ibid.
[15] "The Mirabal Sisters."
[16] Ibid.
[17] "Mirabal Sisters."
[18] Snook.
[19] Radeska.
[20] Ibid.
[21] Ibid.
[22] Encyclopedia.com
[23] Radeska.
[24] Ibid.
[25] Snook.
[26] Kubic, Mike. “Trujillo & The Mirabal Sisters.” Commonlit.org, 2016.
[27] Radeska.
[28] "Mirabal Sisters."
[29] Carmona, Priscilla. “Badass Ladies in History: The Mirabal Story.” Germ Magazine.com, 27 April 2015.
[30] Ibid.
[31] "The Mirabal Sisters."
[32] "Mirabal Sisters."
[33] "The Mirabal Sisters."
[34] Carmona.
[35] "Mirabal Sisters."
[36] Rohter, Larry. “The Three Sisters, Avenged: A Dominican Drama.” New York Times.com, 15 February 1997.
[37] Ibid.
[38] Carmona.
[39] Ibid.
[40] "The Mirabal Sisters."
[41] Rohter.